Patent Document 1 listed below discloses, as a multi-chamber vacuum heating furnace in which a heating chamber and a cooling chamber are disposed adjacent to each other with a partition wall interposed therebetween, a multi-chamber type multi-cooled vacuum furnace in which a heat treatment article is subjected to a cooling treatment by blowing a cooling gas toward the heat treatment article from gas nozzles provided to surround the heat treatment article in a cooling chamber.
Meanwhile, the following Patent Document 2 discloses a multi-chamber heat treatment device in which three heating chambers and a single cooling chamber are disposed with an intermediate transport chamber interposed therebetween, and a desired heat treatment is performed on a treatment object by moving the treatment object between the three heating chambers and the single cooling chamber via the intermediate transport chamber. The cooling chamber in the multi-chamber heat treatment device is disposed below the intermediate transport chamber, and uses a liquid or mist-like cooling medium to cool the treatment object carried in the cooling chamber from the intermediate transport chamber by a dedicated lifting device. The following Patent Documents 3 to 5 also disclose background techniques related to a multi-chamber heat treatment device.